Symbolic Analysts
Reich uses the term of "symbolic analysts" to describe what he feels one
of the three main job classifications of the future will be. The symbolic
analysts will be someone who is a problem identifier, a problem solver, or an
innovator who can visualize new uses of existing technologies. This class of
workers includes scientists, engineers, and other scientific or technical
specialties as well as marketers, investors, some types of lawyers, developers
and a wide variety of consultants.
The symbolic analysts will have a high level of education, both in the
classroom and on the job experience.
Reich believes that this new, actually redefined, class of workers will
be the best bet for job growth and success into the next century. Opportunities
for job growth will remain rather high. This is a result of two factors, a
slowing growth in population and the future retirement of the baby boomer
generation (Reich, 203). It is not the number of jobs in the future that is the
problem, its the quality of those jobs. On the whole, Reich identifies two
trends in job quality. The number of mundane, manufacturing jobs will decrease
as well as the number of in-person service jobs e.g. bank tellers, but growth in
the number of symbolic analytical positions.
The loss of repetitive manufacturing is primarily a cost saving plan of
American corporations. Corporations seeking to lower their costs of labor move
their large, low-skilled manufacturing to points all over the globe in attempt
to find the lowest wages. Replacement of some in-person services is att ...